News

Professor Vázquez is honored for authoring, "The End Again: Degeneration and Visual Culture in Modern Spain"

(University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2017)

Report of the award committee: “This groundbreaking book examines late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Spanish art and culture through the lens of contemporaneous discourse on the perceived atavism of Spain and its people. Vázquez weaves together a rich variety of source material to demonstrate that widespread European notions of cultural and human degeneration assumed a particular resonance in Spain, whose supposed national failings only seemed confirmed by the crushing defeat of 1898. Adopting a broad visual cultural and interdisciplinary perspective, Vázquez considers degeneration as pictured not only in well-known works of art such as Joaquín Sorolla’s Sad Inheritance, but also in “scientific” drawings and photographs and in contemporaneous medical literature. In addition, Vázquez demonstrates that the concept of degeneration informed production across the artistic spectrum, from Marceliano Santa María’s history painting to works by Pablo Picasso and other members of the avant-garde. The End Again is a major achievement, and it will be a fundamental resource for scholars working across the disciplines on modern Spain.”